A normal user's look into the world of 3D Stereo Technologies

The game Bioshock 2 that was released a few days ago was one of the eagerly awaited titles for this year and that was not only because of the big expectations after the first BioShock game, but also because the sequel was supposed to be stereoscopic 3D-ready game (still quite a few of these are available). Supposedly one of the 3D Vision optimized games, but interestingly enough there was nothing mentioning Nvidia 3D Vision readiness about the game, although there is a 3D mode option available inside the game. Bioshock 2 is based on Unreal engine and we all know that this is not the perfect game engine to offer best stereoscopic 3D compatibility, but it seems that the developers did put some effort into making it perform good in S3D mode.

One very important thing you should be aware of is the fact that Bioshock 2 is indeed a 3D Vision-ready title (it has a built-in control over 3D Vision!) and that brings one specific to the activation of the stereoscopic 3D mode in the game. The first time you run Bioshock you won’t be able to enable the stereo 3D mode by pushing the button on the Nvidia IR transmitter or pressing CTRL+T, you’ll need to first go into the game’s Graphic Options menu and enable the 3D Stereo Vision, then restart the game and after doing that you should be able to freely activate and deactivate the S3D mode. It seems that some people are unaware of that requirement or at least just enable the 3D Stereo Vision mode and do not restart the game and complain that the S3D mode is actually not working in Bioshock 2, which is clearly not the case…

When you activate the 3D Vision stereoscopic 3D mode in Bioshock 2 it looks Ok, but you might notice some issues with lighting and shadows, especially if you increase the depth level a bit more. So playing a bit with convergence is something that needs to be done in order to minimize the negative effects you might experience otherwise and here are my preferred custom convergence settings that I found to give me best results. Just import the right Reg file from the archive below depending on your OS type (32-bit/64-bit) run the game and set the depth level to minimum, then after a bit you can try increasing it a few steps to see if it is Ok with you prefer to leave it at the lowest setting. My custom convergence settings are optimized to provide a bit of pop-out effect of the objects very close to you like for example your drill or when you are next to something on the wall that sticks out. Also the 2D crosshair which might be a problem for some people fits better with these convergence settings as you are not distracted by it seeming double or something like that when it passes over objects with more depth. With these settings you should also have less ghosting and issues with the rendering of lights and shadows like you normally might have. As usual please share your comments on how the custom convergence settings worked for you and if you liked them or not…